Sometimes Carl and I forget just how much the littles do pick up from our conversations with each other. Car rides are our best time for discussion, which means that they get to hear everything we say. We do have some sense of propriety - some matters for discussion stay in the bedroom, yes? - but we never hesitate to talk about serious matters in the car or at the dinner table, from politics to philosophy to theology to our future.
It's that last one that was giving Joy some worry, and made me realize how aware I really do need to be of little ears.
We've told the girls for a while that we will probably be moving to Chicago in the next year. We've built it up for them, given them all sorts of things to look forward to when we move out there (especially, oh especially the train). Except now all of the sudden Chicago has become Boston (most likely - long story that can be summed up in "just as good of a grad school for Carl, better job opportunities"), and we kinda sorta forgot to talk it over with the littles.
We've talked about it plenty in front of them, though, which just might explain Joy's most recent meltdown precipitated by not being able to ride the train when we took Gunka (their great-uncle) to the station after a visit. I got no sense out of her sobs (with hands pressed firmly over her eyes while tears streamed down behind them), but Carl finally managed to get out of her that she didn't want to move to Boston; if we were going to move at all, she wanted to move to Chicago. With the trains.
A little more digging also found out that this upcoming trip we're taking to visit the school, she thought was going to be our move. She thought we were moving to Boston this weekend.
Ack, my heart broke.
Joy pays attention to everything, she thinks about everything, but she doesn't talk about much. Especially when she's worried or scared.
We explained to her that we don't even know for certain yet that we will be moving to Boston, but when we do know, we'll tell them. We'll have lots of time to prepare (granted, our move from PA to NY took place in two weeks, but to a kid, that's long enough). We won't just up and move them without talking about it.
Then we started talking about all the fun things there are to do in Boston - I even read to her a little from Make Way for Ducklings - and we promised that there are trains in Boston, too, and we will ride them.
She's been doing better ever since then, but it was a good reminder to us that, as they used to say, "little pitchers have big ears," and if we are going to talk about everything and anything in front of the littles, we'd better make sure we are including them in those talks, explaining things to them, and using language and ideas they can understand.
Otherwise, there is going to be a whole lot of confusion, and many more meltdowns.
And nobody wants that.
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
February 7, 2012
January 5, 2012
The 4 o'clock slump
My SAHM mom friends refer to it as the "4 o'clock slump"--the last hour in the long day before their spouse comes home, when they are tiredest and the kids are at their most grumpy and trying.
In my house, it's the 7 o'clock slump. Because James and I both work at home, our day looks a little different. By 7 o'clock, we've both put in a full day at the "office." We're both exhausted. We've read stacks of books, been to the park, given baths, done a craft or activity, and the house is a mess, dinner still needs to be prepared, a forgotten load of cloth diapers is soaking in the washer, waiting to be rinsed and hung up to dry. From 7 to 8 o'clock comes the hour in which we snipe at each other over wet towels left on the floor, when we get resentful about the things in the day we planned to do but aren't going to, now, when Lu is laying on her stomach on the floor at we have no idea what to do with her because we've run out of ideas and there's still an hour to go until bedtime.
It's probably because we still aren't on a schedule, nine months into this parenting thing. WAH gives us the freedom to start our day whenever we want. We wake up when we wake up. We feed the baby when she seems hungry. We bathe her when she's dirty. We put her down for the night whenever she happens to fall asleep. My goal for 2012 is to get on a schedule, and stick to it. Hopefully, that will make things a little easier. (At least more predictable).
Most of the time, we spend our days doing wonderful things. Like taking Lulu to the National Gallery of Art for the first time.
And giving her her first taste of gelato.
She was shocked by the cold...but it didn't stop her from going back for more.
And through it all, I keep thinking of what a difference a year makes:
January 2011 versus January 2012
But I could use some tips on how to keep myself from going crazy from 7 to 8 PM every night.
What do you do to get through the slump? Any tips are appreciated.
In my house, it's the 7 o'clock slump. Because James and I both work at home, our day looks a little different. By 7 o'clock, we've both put in a full day at the "office." We're both exhausted. We've read stacks of books, been to the park, given baths, done a craft or activity, and the house is a mess, dinner still needs to be prepared, a forgotten load of cloth diapers is soaking in the washer, waiting to be rinsed and hung up to dry. From 7 to 8 o'clock comes the hour in which we snipe at each other over wet towels left on the floor, when we get resentful about the things in the day we planned to do but aren't going to, now, when Lu is laying on her stomach on the floor at we have no idea what to do with her because we've run out of ideas and there's still an hour to go until bedtime.
It's probably because we still aren't on a schedule, nine months into this parenting thing. WAH gives us the freedom to start our day whenever we want. We wake up when we wake up. We feed the baby when she seems hungry. We bathe her when she's dirty. We put her down for the night whenever she happens to fall asleep. My goal for 2012 is to get on a schedule, and stick to it. Hopefully, that will make things a little easier. (At least more predictable).
Most of the time, we spend our days doing wonderful things. Like taking Lulu to the National Gallery of Art for the first time.
And giving her her first taste of gelato.
She was shocked by the cold...but it didn't stop her from going back for more.
And through it all, I keep thinking of what a difference a year makes:
January 2011 versus January 2012
I hope that during tonight's 7 o'clock slump I'll think back on these happy moments and won't let the one difficult one define my day.
But I could use some tips on how to keep myself from going crazy from 7 to 8 PM every night.
What do you do to get through the slump? Any tips are appreciated.
November 15, 2011
Accepting the Frump - Sometimes
"No pictures of me," I told Carl sternly as I handed the camera over to him. Normally the camera is mine, but Gracie was snuggling in my arms, and I would rather cuddle my baby then try to capture the moments of Joy's third birthday celebration in as many weeks. "I haven't showered today," I reminded him.
He grinned cheekily, and started snapping.
He grinned cheekily, and started snapping.
I considered deleting the pictures. After all, we had plenty more of Joy opening presents. And these are B-A-D of me - not only do you get the greasy hair, you get the stress breakout, a nice clear side shot of the receding chin, my rounded shoulders - pretty much highlighting everything I hate most about my appearance.
But then I decided to keep them. And not only to keep them, but to put them up on the public blog. Why?
Because sometimes, fighting the frump doesn't mean looking our best. Sometimes it means living in the moment, and looking part the imperfections to the fact that these are pictures of me lovin' on and snugglin' with my babies. These are the moments of mommyhood I really want to capture, not the moments when I actually have washed hair and makeup on, and I am conscious of my posture.
Well, ok, I wouldn't mind if I was conscious of my posture all the time. I really should be.
But still.
Sometimes fighting the frump means raising our chin (hey, it elongates our neck!) and stepping out bravely into the world, or in front of the camera, even knowing we are covered in baby spit, wearing yoga pants, with two-day unwashed hair scraped back into a ponytail, etc. Because that's all part of being mommy, and we shouldn't be ashamed of it. We ought to be able to celebrate every moment of mommyhood, even the unglamourous ones.
So I'm keeping the pictures, and I'm not even going to flinch when I look at them.
But I will double-check to see if my shoulders are back and my neck straight.
October 28, 2011
Both sides now
I've always been the kind of person who functions best when there is some kind of reward at the end of things to spur me on. Throughout my adult life, I've always tried hard to find little ways to reward myself for doing things that needed to be done. I went to work today; ergo, I totally deserve this $89 pair of shoes!
Yesterday I cleaned my entire house, did three loads of laundry, pureed, steamed, and froze a huge batch of dollar-apiece locally grown organic carrots, stripped and washed and dried and stuffed cloth diapers, fed the baby carefully mashed worth-their-weight-in-gold farmer's market blueberries, cleaned blueberries off baby and floor, wrote six thank-you notes, did the grocery shop, and edited a 15-page article on glass fiber-reinforced polymer composite.
"Good job, self," I thought, tuckered out at the end of the day. "You have accomplished a lot in a little amount of time. I am so proud of you. As a special treat to honor all you've done, I will carve out a half-hour this evening so that you can PLUCK YOUR EYEBROWS."
Motherhood brings with it all sorts of adjusted expectations. This is one of them. There's less time, less opportunity to treat myself. But it's important to try to fit these things in. And so I look forward to Tuesday because it's the day the Savage Love podcast comes out, and I allow myself an hour in the middle of the day to clean the kitchen and listen to other people talk about their sex lives in amusing detail. Every Friday night, the call goes up around the house: We're changing the sheets! It's New Sheet Day! The promise of slipping into bed between those fresh, smooth sheets is almost too much excitement to bear. A Starbucks latte, once a many-times-a-day, taken-for-granted necessity, becomes a special, once-a-week treat, a genuine outing, a reason for putting on makeup, blowdrying my hair.
Trip to H&M = all expenses paid weekend in Paris
I think my pre-baby self would have thought this was a sad way to live. Post-baby me feels sorry for her. There's so much she didn't see, so many tiny joys she missed.
I know one day the harried baby stage will end and I'll have more time for myself.
I hope I remember to be grateful for it.
Yesterday I cleaned my entire house, did three loads of laundry, pureed, steamed, and froze a huge batch of dollar-apiece locally grown organic carrots, stripped and washed and dried and stuffed cloth diapers, fed the baby carefully mashed worth-their-weight-in-gold farmer's market blueberries, cleaned blueberries off baby and floor, wrote six thank-you notes, did the grocery shop, and edited a 15-page article on glass fiber-reinforced polymer composite.
"Good job, self," I thought, tuckered out at the end of the day. "You have accomplished a lot in a little amount of time. I am so proud of you. As a special treat to honor all you've done, I will carve out a half-hour this evening so that you can PLUCK YOUR EYEBROWS."
Motherhood brings with it all sorts of adjusted expectations. This is one of them. There's less time, less opportunity to treat myself. But it's important to try to fit these things in. And so I look forward to Tuesday because it's the day the Savage Love podcast comes out, and I allow myself an hour in the middle of the day to clean the kitchen and listen to other people talk about their sex lives in amusing detail. Every Friday night, the call goes up around the house: We're changing the sheets! It's New Sheet Day! The promise of slipping into bed between those fresh, smooth sheets is almost too much excitement to bear. A Starbucks latte, once a many-times-a-day, taken-for-granted necessity, becomes a special, once-a-week treat, a genuine outing, a reason for putting on makeup, blowdrying my hair.
Trip to H&M = all expenses paid weekend in ParisI think my pre-baby self would have thought this was a sad way to live. Post-baby me feels sorry for her. There's so much she didn't see, so many tiny joys she missed.
I know one day the harried baby stage will end and I'll have more time for myself.
I hope I remember to be grateful for it.
October 25, 2011
Bad parenting, now in HD
Dear Child Protective Services,
I am writing because I fear that by now you might have heard the rumor that I let my seven(!)-month-old child watch television. And I wanted to say a few things in my defense.
First of all, I want to say that mostly Lulu just listens to TV. She is addicted to the stupid Toddler Tunes music channel and will not do tummy time without it blaring in the background. Though I tried my hardest to encourage a preference for the classical and world music channels, my child wants RAFFI, which means that I have "The More We Get Together" running through my head 21 hours a day (English AND FRENCH. Le plus nous nous blow our brains out, ensemble, ensemble...)
And yes, while Lulu's eyes light up at the sound of Michael C. Hall's voice ("Dada!"), as the result of an intense Dexter marathon that spanned her first few months on the planet, I can safely say that she has never seen his face. Because I keep her carefully angled away from the television at all times. I figure that it must be the picture that warps the brain cells, right? Otherwise the internet would tell me to keep her away from the radio, too. (This is my logic). With her back to the TV, she should be quite safe, unless there is some harm from the TV rays that I don't know about. I...don't really know how a TV works and just realized that it may involve electromagnetism, which I know can be dangerous from a sci-fi book I read once. (I promise immediately remedy my lack of knowledge on this subject by reading Wikipedia and perusing copious messages posted to online web forums.)
Of course, my genius plan has gotten a lot harder now that Lulu has learned to do this:
Can't yet roll both ways; can, however, do a full back bend to see the screen.
I thought about tying her down to limit her movement, but if I recall correctly, your lot sort of frowns on that. I suppose I could limit my TV intake, or even (gasp!) stop watching it altogether. But you don't really expect me to do that. I mean, you guys are notoriously hardcore, but I know you can't be THAT unreasonable.
In any case, I apologize for this lapse in judgment and I assure you that I will do all I can to stunt my child's crafty, preternatural, Nadia-Comaneciesque flexibility. And in the meantime, I promise to only watch television that is instructive on important topics. Like Project Runway (art and design) or the Real Housewives of New York (scheming).
Thank you for your continued understanding in the face of my many flaws.
Until next time,
Cath
I am writing because I fear that by now you might have heard the rumor that I let my seven(!)-month-old child watch television. And I wanted to say a few things in my defense.
First of all, I want to say that mostly Lulu just listens to TV. She is addicted to the stupid Toddler Tunes music channel and will not do tummy time without it blaring in the background. Though I tried my hardest to encourage a preference for the classical and world music channels, my child wants RAFFI, which means that I have "The More We Get Together" running through my head 21 hours a day (English AND FRENCH. Le plus nous nous blow our brains out, ensemble, ensemble...)
And yes, while Lulu's eyes light up at the sound of Michael C. Hall's voice ("Dada!"), as the result of an intense Dexter marathon that spanned her first few months on the planet, I can safely say that she has never seen his face. Because I keep her carefully angled away from the television at all times. I figure that it must be the picture that warps the brain cells, right? Otherwise the internet would tell me to keep her away from the radio, too. (This is my logic). With her back to the TV, she should be quite safe, unless there is some harm from the TV rays that I don't know about. I...don't really know how a TV works and just realized that it may involve electromagnetism, which I know can be dangerous from a sci-fi book I read once. (I promise immediately remedy my lack of knowledge on this subject by reading Wikipedia and perusing copious messages posted to online web forums.)
Of course, my genius plan has gotten a lot harder now that Lulu has learned to do this:
Can't yet roll both ways; can, however, do a full back bend to see the screen.I thought about tying her down to limit her movement, but if I recall correctly, your lot sort of frowns on that. I suppose I could limit my TV intake, or even (gasp!) stop watching it altogether. But you don't really expect me to do that. I mean, you guys are notoriously hardcore, but I know you can't be THAT unreasonable.
In any case, I apologize for this lapse in judgment and I assure you that I will do all I can to stunt my child's crafty, preternatural, Nadia-Comaneciesque flexibility. And in the meantime, I promise to only watch television that is instructive on important topics. Like Project Runway (art and design) or the Real Housewives of New York (scheming).
Thank you for your continued understanding in the face of my many flaws.
Until next time,
Cath
October 20, 2011
I love Lulu
I love that she loves it when J.D. and I pretend to eat her. "ZOM-BIE BA-BY," we say in our best zombie voices, and she cackles, so amused.
I love that when we zoom her around the air, she makes what we call her "superhero face." Mouth wide open, nose crinkled. Pure glee and crimefighting adorableness all in one compact package.
I love that she sits in her swing with one leg up in the air. Although I hope we can wean her of this habit by the time she's in high school. As my own mother would say, it's not very ladylike.
I love her enthusiasm, her burgeoning sense of independence. She's new to food, but when we feed her, she grabs at the spoon, already wants to do it herself. I have the feeling that once she can talk, I'll be hearing this a lot: "No, Mama--I do it."
I love reading to her with J.D., and the little asides we make on the stories that we reads. We love to talk about capitalist overlords when we read Mike Mulligan. "'I work faster and better when someone is watching me? WTF kind of Big Brother shit is that?'" Occupy Popperville, everybody, because Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne are the 99%!
When Lulu is tired, she rubs her eyes with her hands like a pantomime of somebody in a play, pretending to be tired. It's infinitely charming. There is something so sweetly innocent about it. When she wants our attention, though, she blows raspberries, total Bronx cabbie style, tongue sticking out, a baby sneer on her face. We can't help laughing at both.
I love the tragic relationship Lu has with the cats. She absolutely adores them and wants them to come near to her--but when they do, she gets so excited, starts windmilling her arms and legs, and the cats get freaked out and run away again. Then she is totally bereft, lip folding down, tears, the works.
I wish I could be as happy about anything in the world as Lulu is to have her diaper changed. This kid loves being naked, loves to glory in her small, pudgy, supersoft and velvety body. I hope she always, always does, that she never wishes she was shaped or assembled any differently from the way she is, because she is perfect and perfectly herself.
I love to dress her for the day. My favorite of her outfits right now is a white dress with tiny blue polkadots, a hand-me-down from Louise's littles. I pair it with a pair of black leggings with multicolored buttons on the ankles, and Lulu looks gamine and adorable and totally '50s, a tiny, roly-poly Audrey Hepburn. (An image she immediately shatters by simultaneously farting and puking. I am sure Audrey never did either one of those things.)
I love the thousand little songs we sing to our girl throughout each day, how we change the lyrics to suit her. "I loves you, Lulu," we sing, to the tune of I Loves You, Porgy. "Mrs. Lulu," we sing, to the tune of Mr. Sandman, "I lo-ove you. When you're not with me, I'm feeling so blue." We substitute words in that old song, Calendar Girl: "I love I love I love my little Lulu girl, every day, every day of the year."
I love the big girl my baby is becoming, but I love that there are signs of the tiny newborn she used to be still in her, too. Yesterday, Lu sneezed, and then sighed--something I haven't heard her do in months. It felt like a reminder, like a gift.
I love everything about this kid, all the tiny pieces that make her who she is today.
Dear God: give me the gift of memory. Don't let me forget a single thing.
I love that when we zoom her around the air, she makes what we call her "superhero face." Mouth wide open, nose crinkled. Pure glee and crimefighting adorableness all in one compact package.
I love that she sits in her swing with one leg up in the air. Although I hope we can wean her of this habit by the time she's in high school. As my own mother would say, it's not very ladylike.
I love her enthusiasm, her burgeoning sense of independence. She's new to food, but when we feed her, she grabs at the spoon, already wants to do it herself. I have the feeling that once she can talk, I'll be hearing this a lot: "No, Mama--I do it."
I love reading to her with J.D., and the little asides we make on the stories that we reads. We love to talk about capitalist overlords when we read Mike Mulligan. "'I work faster and better when someone is watching me? WTF kind of Big Brother shit is that?'" Occupy Popperville, everybody, because Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne are the 99%!
When Lulu is tired, she rubs her eyes with her hands like a pantomime of somebody in a play, pretending to be tired. It's infinitely charming. There is something so sweetly innocent about it. When she wants our attention, though, she blows raspberries, total Bronx cabbie style, tongue sticking out, a baby sneer on her face. We can't help laughing at both.
I love the tragic relationship Lu has with the cats. She absolutely adores them and wants them to come near to her--but when they do, she gets so excited, starts windmilling her arms and legs, and the cats get freaked out and run away again. Then she is totally bereft, lip folding down, tears, the works.
I wish I could be as happy about anything in the world as Lulu is to have her diaper changed. This kid loves being naked, loves to glory in her small, pudgy, supersoft and velvety body. I hope she always, always does, that she never wishes she was shaped or assembled any differently from the way she is, because she is perfect and perfectly herself.
I love to dress her for the day. My favorite of her outfits right now is a white dress with tiny blue polkadots, a hand-me-down from Louise's littles. I pair it with a pair of black leggings with multicolored buttons on the ankles, and Lulu looks gamine and adorable and totally '50s, a tiny, roly-poly Audrey Hepburn. (An image she immediately shatters by simultaneously farting and puking. I am sure Audrey never did either one of those things.)
I love the thousand little songs we sing to our girl throughout each day, how we change the lyrics to suit her. "I loves you, Lulu," we sing, to the tune of I Loves You, Porgy. "Mrs. Lulu," we sing, to the tune of Mr. Sandman, "I lo-ove you. When you're not with me, I'm feeling so blue." We substitute words in that old song, Calendar Girl: "I love I love I love my little Lulu girl, every day, every day of the year."
I love the big girl my baby is becoming, but I love that there are signs of the tiny newborn she used to be still in her, too. Yesterday, Lu sneezed, and then sighed--something I haven't heard her do in months. It felt like a reminder, like a gift.
I love everything about this kid, all the tiny pieces that make her who she is today.
Dear God: give me the gift of memory. Don't let me forget a single thing.
October 18, 2011
By any other name
The whole science of naming is something that has fascinated me since I was a young child. I remember filling the margins of my notebooks with a list of the names that I thought were beautiful--Helen, Clover, Augusta, Beatrice, Felicity, Jessamine--and wonder which one of these I would pick for my future child, what she would be like, how her name would shape her. When they handed that blank birth certificate form to me in the hospital, all those neat little boxes waiting to hold the name we'd chosen for our daughter, I actually trembled with excitement. I couldn't believe they were going to let me name an actual person.
A lot of thought went into picking Lulu's name. Which, in the interest of full disclosure, isn't actually Lulu. I don't want to say exactly what it is because I feel hinky about giving her name on the internet. I mentioned it several times on my old book blog, but this is a blog about her life, and I don't want to share details of her life without her consent. One day, if she wants, I'll go back and do a search-and-replace on the whole thing with her real name, but until then, she's Lulu. It's her nom de guerre.
Lulu has three names, first, middle and last. Her last name is my husband's, because I am subjugated and antifeminist but mostly because my maiden name is German and hard to spell. Her middle name is for my paternal grandmother, who died when I was 11. I have 21 years' worth of memories of my mother's mom, my Mammaw, to share with Lu when she is older, but I wanted her to have something of my other grandmother, too. So we added a few letters to her name, Lois, and made a name that felt a little more fresh.
Lu's first name is short and sweet and to the point. It is the name of a character in my favorite book. It's a classic; it peaked in popularity in the U.S. in 1910 and has been sliding ever since. It's not a new oldie, one of the ubiquitous "pretty grandma" names like Violet or Alice or Eloise. It's common enough among the general population so that you won't bat an eyelash to hear it but it's not a name that you find much on women under 40, much less little babies. Think Jane. (It's not Jane. But Jane is on my list).
But on an everyday basis, we don't call Lulu by any of these carefully chosen names. Most of the time we call her stupid things like "Bicky" or "Dog-Dog" or "Pants." When we're not using these undignified monikers, we call her by a nickname. It's a foreign version of her real name, a legitimate name, not made up. It's in the top 50 or so names for girls in Holland and Belgium and France, but in the U.S., it's very rare. There is a Dutch pop star and French actress and a character in a popularish book and movie who share this name, but I have never met anybody in real life who goes by it. We like that Lulu has two names, J.D. and I, and that they are so different. We like that she could use either one of them her whole life, or that she can switch back and forth between them as her situation and identity dictate. Whether Lulu grows up to be a Supreme Court Justice or the singer in a punk rock band, she's covered.
I think something that I have always liked about names are the small--and not-so-small--ways in which they shape our lives. A child's name is so important to whom he or she will become. That's backed up by science--researchers have found that students with names starting with A or B do better in school than kids whose names start with C or D, that men named Dennis and Joe are far more likely to become dentists and plumbers than men named James or Andrew. When I meet a parent with a baby, I always ask what his or her name is, and then I try to think about how that name will shape that baby's future. Will little Atom grow up to be a physicist? Will Colton ride horses? Will Shiva backpack through India, feel an affinity for Hindu philosophies? I'm named for an aunt--my mother's sister--and we are very, very close, and so alike that it's scary. But what if my mom had named me for her other sister? Would I feel closer to her, share more of her traits?
But what I really love are the things a name says about the namer. The things I wouldn't otherwise know. When my very good friend gave her son a very Celtic name, one of the ones with a lot of consonants that don't sound how you expect them, I wanted to know what led her to choose it. It seemed like a kind of random choice. But then she told me the story of her Irish immigrant grandparents, why they left their home in Ireland, why they moved to America, their traditions. I was floored--I hadn't known my friend's ancestry was so important to her. I hadn't known she was Irish at all. And I'd known her for 10 years.
At story hour at the public library a few weeks ago, there was a mother with a four-week-old baby, and his name was Larry. "That is a marvelous name," I told her. "Most people think it sounds like a hick or an old man," she said, "But it was my dad's name." And then she told me about her dad, who had died. She gave part of his memory, and part of herself, to me, and I'd only known her for thirty seconds.
Even really common names can be more revealing than you'd think. A woman I went to elementary school with recently named her daughter Jennifer, which isn't strange, but seemed like a strange choice because of its unstrangeness. But there was a story there, too: my Filipino friend, with her Filipino name, had dreamed, when she came to this country at a young age, of being a bright and bubbly, quintessentially American Jennifer instead of the foreign-sounding Maricel. Jennifer represents countless Jennis, Jennys, Jens and Jenns to us; to her it represented a wish for her new life.
So it's surprising, given the deep, intimate, personal nature of the naming process, that people can be such TOTAL ASSHOLES about the things that other people call their children. Seriously, everybody on the planet? What is WRONG with you? People can find something negative to say about pretty much every name under the sun (as evinced by the fact that nobody liked the boy name J.D. and I picked out, which was JOHN, probably the most inoffensive name known to man). But we parents of kids with unusual names reap it harder than anybody else. Just the other day I was talking to my friend S., whose daughter is named Liesel, and she recounted to me the story of a woman who accosted her while she was in the grocery store, minding her own business, to tell her that she didn't like her daughter's name, which she had discerned from the monogrammed diaper bag hanging over my friend's shoulder.
"When people do that to me," I said. "I wish them hemorrhoids."
"When people do that to me," Liesel's mom said, "I wish that they would be somehow unfairly implicated in a heinous crime and forced to flee the long arm of the law and the grip of the one-armed man. Like in The Fugitive."
So we talked about it some more, at length, and came up with a list of dos and don'ts that everybody must follow when talking to parents about their childrens' names. Because we decree it so. And because the penalty of not doing it is hemorrhoids.
"One day I'll learn to talk, Pantoufle. And then I'll get my revenge."
A lot of thought went into picking Lulu's name. Which, in the interest of full disclosure, isn't actually Lulu. I don't want to say exactly what it is because I feel hinky about giving her name on the internet. I mentioned it several times on my old book blog, but this is a blog about her life, and I don't want to share details of her life without her consent. One day, if she wants, I'll go back and do a search-and-replace on the whole thing with her real name, but until then, she's Lulu. It's her nom de guerre.
Lulu has three names, first, middle and last. Her last name is my husband's, because I am subjugated and antifeminist but mostly because my maiden name is German and hard to spell. Her middle name is for my paternal grandmother, who died when I was 11. I have 21 years' worth of memories of my mother's mom, my Mammaw, to share with Lu when she is older, but I wanted her to have something of my other grandmother, too. So we added a few letters to her name, Lois, and made a name that felt a little more fresh.
Lu's first name is short and sweet and to the point. It is the name of a character in my favorite book. It's a classic; it peaked in popularity in the U.S. in 1910 and has been sliding ever since. It's not a new oldie, one of the ubiquitous "pretty grandma" names like Violet or Alice or Eloise. It's common enough among the general population so that you won't bat an eyelash to hear it but it's not a name that you find much on women under 40, much less little babies. Think Jane. (It's not Jane. But Jane is on my list).
But on an everyday basis, we don't call Lulu by any of these carefully chosen names. Most of the time we call her stupid things like "Bicky" or "Dog-Dog" or "Pants." When we're not using these undignified monikers, we call her by a nickname. It's a foreign version of her real name, a legitimate name, not made up. It's in the top 50 or so names for girls in Holland and Belgium and France, but in the U.S., it's very rare. There is a Dutch pop star and French actress and a character in a popularish book and movie who share this name, but I have never met anybody in real life who goes by it. We like that Lulu has two names, J.D. and I, and that they are so different. We like that she could use either one of them her whole life, or that she can switch back and forth between them as her situation and identity dictate. Whether Lulu grows up to be a Supreme Court Justice or the singer in a punk rock band, she's covered.
I think something that I have always liked about names are the small--and not-so-small--ways in which they shape our lives. A child's name is so important to whom he or she will become. That's backed up by science--researchers have found that students with names starting with A or B do better in school than kids whose names start with C or D, that men named Dennis and Joe are far more likely to become dentists and plumbers than men named James or Andrew. When I meet a parent with a baby, I always ask what his or her name is, and then I try to think about how that name will shape that baby's future. Will little Atom grow up to be a physicist? Will Colton ride horses? Will Shiva backpack through India, feel an affinity for Hindu philosophies? I'm named for an aunt--my mother's sister--and we are very, very close, and so alike that it's scary. But what if my mom had named me for her other sister? Would I feel closer to her, share more of her traits?
But what I really love are the things a name says about the namer. The things I wouldn't otherwise know. When my very good friend gave her son a very Celtic name, one of the ones with a lot of consonants that don't sound how you expect them, I wanted to know what led her to choose it. It seemed like a kind of random choice. But then she told me the story of her Irish immigrant grandparents, why they left their home in Ireland, why they moved to America, their traditions. I was floored--I hadn't known my friend's ancestry was so important to her. I hadn't known she was Irish at all. And I'd known her for 10 years.
At story hour at the public library a few weeks ago, there was a mother with a four-week-old baby, and his name was Larry. "That is a marvelous name," I told her. "Most people think it sounds like a hick or an old man," she said, "But it was my dad's name." And then she told me about her dad, who had died. She gave part of his memory, and part of herself, to me, and I'd only known her for thirty seconds.
Even really common names can be more revealing than you'd think. A woman I went to elementary school with recently named her daughter Jennifer, which isn't strange, but seemed like a strange choice because of its unstrangeness. But there was a story there, too: my Filipino friend, with her Filipino name, had dreamed, when she came to this country at a young age, of being a bright and bubbly, quintessentially American Jennifer instead of the foreign-sounding Maricel. Jennifer represents countless Jennis, Jennys, Jens and Jenns to us; to her it represented a wish for her new life.
So it's surprising, given the deep, intimate, personal nature of the naming process, that people can be such TOTAL ASSHOLES about the things that other people call their children. Seriously, everybody on the planet? What is WRONG with you? People can find something negative to say about pretty much every name under the sun (as evinced by the fact that nobody liked the boy name J.D. and I picked out, which was JOHN, probably the most inoffensive name known to man). But we parents of kids with unusual names reap it harder than anybody else. Just the other day I was talking to my friend S., whose daughter is named Liesel, and she recounted to me the story of a woman who accosted her while she was in the grocery store, minding her own business, to tell her that she didn't like her daughter's name, which she had discerned from the monogrammed diaper bag hanging over my friend's shoulder.
"When people do that to me," I said. "I wish them hemorrhoids."
"When people do that to me," Liesel's mom said, "I wish that they would be somehow unfairly implicated in a heinous crime and forced to flee the long arm of the law and the grip of the one-armed man. Like in The Fugitive."
So we talked about it some more, at length, and came up with a list of dos and don'ts that everybody must follow when talking to parents about their childrens' names. Because we decree it so. And because the penalty of not doing it is hemorrhoids.
- DO call the child by the name the parents have chosen. Even if you don't really like it or you feel stupid saying it. Don't choose an alternate nickname, or make one up, or use the middle name instead.
- DON'T be afraid to ask questions. It's OK to ask how a name is spelled or pronounced. It's OK to ask more than once if you need to. Because pretty much everybody prefers that you ask multiple times rather than getting it wrong.
- DO let us know if you know someone else with the same name as our child. But please don't tell us if you had an evil teacher/horrible boss/person you never liked with that name.
- DON'T be afraid to say that you think a name is unusual. We know the name is unusual; that's usually why we chose it.
- DO try to chose your words carefully, though. Words like "strange" and "weird" and "odd" don't always sound the best. It's always better to say "interesting."
- DON'T say you dislike a name. Don't ever do that, please. Usually by the time a parent is sharing a name with you, the kid is born and here and that's his name and your opinion will only make everybody feel bad. Remember that if we all had the same taste in names as you, then your own child's name wouldn't be so special. And everyone wants their child's name to be at least a little bit special--that's why there are 50,000 nicknames for Elizabeth, and why people go so ferally batshit crazy when someone "steals" the name they've chosen.
- DO try to find something to like about the name that's being shared with you. Even names like Ethel and Edna can be charming if you think of them in the right way. For instance, Ethel Waters was a totally boss jazz singer and Edna Ferber wrote some of the most adorable books in the history of books. Accentuate the positive. And there's always a positive.
- Most importantly, DO ask about the story behind the name. You'll almost always learn something important or meaningful about the person who chose it.
"One day I'll learn to talk, Pantoufle. And then I'll get my revenge."How did you pick your child's name? What does it mean to you? Please share the story with us in the comments.
October 14, 2011
Mommy meangirl
I have to preface the entry by saying that I live in the snootiest county in the snootiest area probably in the world. There's this messageboard, for moms in my metro area? And it is filled with some of the meanest parents I have ever had the misfortune to run across online. People who won't hesitate to tell you that they think you are a bad parent, that you are fat and poor, that your kids are ugly. There are SO many mean moms on there. But luckily I have never encountered any of them in real life. All of the moms I have met in real life, at parks and library story hours, have been nothing but totally awesome and nice.
Until today. Today I am pretty sure I was mommy meangirled.
It happened like this: Lulu and I got up early. It was raining, so our usual jaunt to the park was out. So we decided to go to a playgroup meetup at a local community center. We've been a few times before, she loves it, I have a great time talking to nice people. Today I sat down in my usual spot, started chatting to the other parents. There was a dad to the left of me, a mom to the right with her twins. We listened to stories, we sang songs. Then we put the babies on the floor and let them loose on a bunch of small plush balls.
Just about this time, a new mom walks over, plops herself down with her kid, and confiscates the balls nearer to us. She turns to the mom with twins. "Would you like to play?" The mom with twins says yes, and so the new mom rolls a ball to her. Then she leans ALL THE HELL WAY over me and says to the dad, "Would you like to play with us?" The dad says yes. She says nothing to me. She rolls the ball over my legs to the dad. Lulu is sitting there clapping her hands, watching. The mom collects the balls, rolls them out again. But not to us.
WTF, right? I just kind of sat there, waiting for her to ask us if we would like to play, too, but she didn't. Soon it became apparent that she didn't plan to, and I really didn't know how to respond. I suppose I could have asked, "Hey, can we join in?" but neither of the other parents had had to ask, and something in me balked at having to be all, please, sir, I want some more to this woman who had so obviously snubbed us. Across the room were some moms I knew, nice moms, moms who had always included us in previous playgroup activities, and I wanted so badly to get up and walk away from the mean mom but my foot had fallen asleep, which prevented a quick getaway.
So I just sat there, feeling like a fool. Thinking of other times in my life I had felt this way. In sixth grade, when I learned everybody in the class except for me and a few others had been invited to Allison Dupre's birthday at a really cool waterpark near the beach. I had always been really cool to Allison, practicing spelling with her in the carpool line before a big test, lending her Sweet Valley books. We were in Scouts together. She had come to my birthday. When I confronted her, crying, asking her why I wasn't invited, she said, "I just didn't feel like inviting you, Cathy."
While I waited for the feeling to come back in my foot, I went over a mental checklist, trying to work out if there was anything about the way I looked, right then, that would make it appropriate--even wise--to exclude me from the playtime fun. I was wearing jeans and a black tee, ballet flats, an anthropologie sweater. My hair was brushed. My teeth were brushed. While I was not wearing makeup, I had at least showered and put on earrings. They were $4 earrings from Forever 21, covered in tacky rhinestones, but I did not think that qualified me as crazy woman from whom you must protect your children. Maybe she didn't like the cut of my jib? Maybe she thought the others would be more complacent minions?
And the worst part was, this woman's kid? Was older than Lulu, about a year old. And could tell that Lulu wanted to play. So every time she got the ball, she rolled it to my daughter. And then the mean mom would reach over, take it back, and roll it to one of her BALL PLAY APPROVED friends. It made me sad, to see her kid so open, so inclusive, because I know when that baby grows up, she is going to be a meangirl just like her mother. Because you learn what you see, right?
The hour came to a close, the other parents got up and drifted away, and finally, the mean mom turned to me and tried to make small talk since she had nobody else to talk to. I guess I was better than nobody at all. I usually try to cut people some slack in situations like this, but today I wasn't in the mood. I just kept thinking of how my kid's eyes followed the ball she (or I?) obviously wasn't good enough to play with. And plus she was being so suddenly nice and it freaked me out. The feeling had come back to my foot so I stood up and collected our things. The mean mom said, "Are you going to come back next week?" And I said, "Maybe."
Here is what I would have liked to say, though.
"Listen, lady, probably not--unless you're not here. Because seriously, you have just made me feel about three inches tall and I don't like the fact that you found it so easy to be rude and excluding to a little baby. Maybe you don't like my diaper bag or some shit, but that's no excuse for excluding my kid. She doesn't realize now but one day she will and she'll be hurt, and I actually think people who can be hurtful in this way are psychopaths that are a worse of a threat to society than someone like Dexter, who dismembers and kills people on the reg. You've now thrown me into a quiet panic about how I will handle this mean girl shit in my daughter's preteen years, how I will make her feel better when girls like your own kid are mean to her because they can be, since I don't seem to be doing such a good job with it myself right now. Nothing would make me happier than if you relocated to Timbuktu. I wish you hemorrhoids. Good day."
I got home and dug through the toy box and found a few balls of our own. I spent a little while rolling them to Lu, praising her when she bopped them back in my direction, talking about how good it felt to share when I rolled them back. I might not be able to protect my daughter from all the meangirls in the world, but I swear by the three faces of Jove, she will never be one herself. Not while I have breath in my body.
Until today. Today I am pretty sure I was mommy meangirled.
It happened like this: Lulu and I got up early. It was raining, so our usual jaunt to the park was out. So we decided to go to a playgroup meetup at a local community center. We've been a few times before, she loves it, I have a great time talking to nice people. Today I sat down in my usual spot, started chatting to the other parents. There was a dad to the left of me, a mom to the right with her twins. We listened to stories, we sang songs. Then we put the babies on the floor and let them loose on a bunch of small plush balls.
Just about this time, a new mom walks over, plops herself down with her kid, and confiscates the balls nearer to us. She turns to the mom with twins. "Would you like to play?" The mom with twins says yes, and so the new mom rolls a ball to her. Then she leans ALL THE HELL WAY over me and says to the dad, "Would you like to play with us?" The dad says yes. She says nothing to me. She rolls the ball over my legs to the dad. Lulu is sitting there clapping her hands, watching. The mom collects the balls, rolls them out again. But not to us.
WTF, right? I just kind of sat there, waiting for her to ask us if we would like to play, too, but she didn't. Soon it became apparent that she didn't plan to, and I really didn't know how to respond. I suppose I could have asked, "Hey, can we join in?" but neither of the other parents had had to ask, and something in me balked at having to be all, please, sir, I want some more to this woman who had so obviously snubbed us. Across the room were some moms I knew, nice moms, moms who had always included us in previous playgroup activities, and I wanted so badly to get up and walk away from the mean mom but my foot had fallen asleep, which prevented a quick getaway.
So I just sat there, feeling like a fool. Thinking of other times in my life I had felt this way. In sixth grade, when I learned everybody in the class except for me and a few others had been invited to Allison Dupre's birthday at a really cool waterpark near the beach. I had always been really cool to Allison, practicing spelling with her in the carpool line before a big test, lending her Sweet Valley books. We were in Scouts together. She had come to my birthday. When I confronted her, crying, asking her why I wasn't invited, she said, "I just didn't feel like inviting you, Cathy."
While I waited for the feeling to come back in my foot, I went over a mental checklist, trying to work out if there was anything about the way I looked, right then, that would make it appropriate--even wise--to exclude me from the playtime fun. I was wearing jeans and a black tee, ballet flats, an anthropologie sweater. My hair was brushed. My teeth were brushed. While I was not wearing makeup, I had at least showered and put on earrings. They were $4 earrings from Forever 21, covered in tacky rhinestones, but I did not think that qualified me as crazy woman from whom you must protect your children. Maybe she didn't like the cut of my jib? Maybe she thought the others would be more complacent minions?
And the worst part was, this woman's kid? Was older than Lulu, about a year old. And could tell that Lulu wanted to play. So every time she got the ball, she rolled it to my daughter. And then the mean mom would reach over, take it back, and roll it to one of her BALL PLAY APPROVED friends. It made me sad, to see her kid so open, so inclusive, because I know when that baby grows up, she is going to be a meangirl just like her mother. Because you learn what you see, right?
The hour came to a close, the other parents got up and drifted away, and finally, the mean mom turned to me and tried to make small talk since she had nobody else to talk to. I guess I was better than nobody at all. I usually try to cut people some slack in situations like this, but today I wasn't in the mood. I just kept thinking of how my kid's eyes followed the ball she (or I?) obviously wasn't good enough to play with. And plus she was being so suddenly nice and it freaked me out. The feeling had come back to my foot so I stood up and collected our things. The mean mom said, "Are you going to come back next week?" And I said, "Maybe."
Here is what I would have liked to say, though.
"Listen, lady, probably not--unless you're not here. Because seriously, you have just made me feel about three inches tall and I don't like the fact that you found it so easy to be rude and excluding to a little baby. Maybe you don't like my diaper bag or some shit, but that's no excuse for excluding my kid. She doesn't realize now but one day she will and she'll be hurt, and I actually think people who can be hurtful in this way are psychopaths that are a worse of a threat to society than someone like Dexter, who dismembers and kills people on the reg. You've now thrown me into a quiet panic about how I will handle this mean girl shit in my daughter's preteen years, how I will make her feel better when girls like your own kid are mean to her because they can be, since I don't seem to be doing such a good job with it myself right now. Nothing would make me happier than if you relocated to Timbuktu. I wish you hemorrhoids. Good day."
I got home and dug through the toy box and found a few balls of our own. I spent a little while rolling them to Lu, praising her when she bopped them back in my direction, talking about how good it felt to share when I rolled them back. I might not be able to protect my daughter from all the meangirls in the world, but I swear by the three faces of Jove, she will never be one herself. Not while I have breath in my body.
October 9, 2011
Dear Mom and Dad
Thank you for getting married 35 years ago today. Thank you for having me six years later, even after a miserable pregnancy with Lis three years before. Thank you for staying married, through the good times and the bad, and giving me an example of perseverance and faithfulness.
Thank you for filling our house with laughter and love. Thank you for drilling into us from childhood that "people are more important than things." Thank you for your examples of how to put other people ahead of ourselves.
Mom, thank you for using baking and cooking to teach me fractions. Thank you for letting us do school outside when the weather was nice. Thank you for quitting your job to teach us at home when public school was no longer working for us, even though that was a pretty radical thing to do at the time. Thank you for reading to me when I had to spend summer days in bed with cucumbers over my eyelids because they got sunburned, for library trips that send us home staggering with piles of books, for introducing me to some of my best friends in life - Betsy, Tacy, and Tib; Anne Shirley and Emily Starr; Lucy and Edmund and Jill and Eustace and Aravis and Shasta; Bilbo Baggins; Randy and Rush, and Portia and Julian; so many characters who have helped shape me into the person I am today. Thank you for sticking to your guns and making us eat homemade whole wheat bread instead of storebought white bread. Thank you for teaching me to sew and knit and tear apart walls and above all, to think for myself.
Dad, thank you for for impromptu trips to McDonalds for fries and hot chocolate even when we couldn't afford it. Thank you for joining the board of the skating club so you could be involved in our sport. Thank you for getting on the ice with the other dads and not being embarrassed to skate to "Born to be Wild" in our ice show. Thank you for going with me to the '98 Worlds, so I could see some of my favorite skaters ever in person, and thank you for asking Todd Eldredge for his picture when I was too shy to say anything. Thank you for working ridiculous hours at your job so Mom could stay home with Lis and me. Thank you for letting me work at that job with you when I was old enough, so I could start to earn my own income and learn about hard work. Thank you for teaching me to fish, to throw and catch (even though I'm still terrible at that), to shoot a gun and drive a car and how to keep my head in an emergency.
Thank you both, most of all, for showing us faith and love and godliness, for raising us to be strong-minded, independent women unashamed of who and what we are.
My greatest hope as a parent is that someday my girls will have the kind of relationship with Carl and me that Lis and I have with you.
Happy Anniversary.
Thank you for filling our house with laughter and love. Thank you for drilling into us from childhood that "people are more important than things." Thank you for your examples of how to put other people ahead of ourselves.
Mom, thank you for using baking and cooking to teach me fractions. Thank you for letting us do school outside when the weather was nice. Thank you for quitting your job to teach us at home when public school was no longer working for us, even though that was a pretty radical thing to do at the time. Thank you for reading to me when I had to spend summer days in bed with cucumbers over my eyelids because they got sunburned, for library trips that send us home staggering with piles of books, for introducing me to some of my best friends in life - Betsy, Tacy, and Tib; Anne Shirley and Emily Starr; Lucy and Edmund and Jill and Eustace and Aravis and Shasta; Bilbo Baggins; Randy and Rush, and Portia and Julian; so many characters who have helped shape me into the person I am today. Thank you for sticking to your guns and making us eat homemade whole wheat bread instead of storebought white bread. Thank you for teaching me to sew and knit and tear apart walls and above all, to think for myself.
Dad, thank you for for impromptu trips to McDonalds for fries and hot chocolate even when we couldn't afford it. Thank you for joining the board of the skating club so you could be involved in our sport. Thank you for getting on the ice with the other dads and not being embarrassed to skate to "Born to be Wild" in our ice show. Thank you for going with me to the '98 Worlds, so I could see some of my favorite skaters ever in person, and thank you for asking Todd Eldredge for his picture when I was too shy to say anything. Thank you for working ridiculous hours at your job so Mom could stay home with Lis and me. Thank you for letting me work at that job with you when I was old enough, so I could start to earn my own income and learn about hard work. Thank you for teaching me to fish, to throw and catch (even though I'm still terrible at that), to shoot a gun and drive a car and how to keep my head in an emergency.
Thank you both, most of all, for showing us faith and love and godliness, for raising us to be strong-minded, independent women unashamed of who and what we are.
My greatest hope as a parent is that someday my girls will have the kind of relationship with Carl and me that Lis and I have with you.
Happy Anniversary.
October 3, 2011
Perchance to dream
Lulu has always been a champion sleeper. (She gets that from me.) Her first few weeks at home after the NICU, we actually had to wake her up to feed her. When people ask how long she sleeps at a stretch, I usually lie and say "five or six hours," because 1) I do not want them to hate me and 2) I think it might sound kind of sinister and suspicious to admit the real number is usually something more like 10. The truth is that Lulu dozes on and off in her swing starting at about 10:00. I wake her up to feed her at midnight. Then I put her in her crib, and she sleeps straight through to 7 AM, and then usually another hour, after she's eaten her breakfast.
We thought we'd gotten lucky. We got bed rest and hospital visits and fifteen days in the NICU, but we also got a baby who SLEEPS.
In the past few days, however, all of that has gone to shit and now we are no better than the rest of you tired parents.
It all started when Lulu got came down with her first cold. She seems in good spirits and hasn't run a temperature. The only time she seems ill at all is at night, when she horks and burbles and snuffles herself awake.
Second of all, I think we are entering the four-month sleep regression. Lu hit the six-month mark last week, but her adjusted age is four months. Even before she'd gotten sick, she had started to wake up more frequently, and the quality of her sleep seemed changed, more restless.
Third, Lulu learned how to roll.
When I say that Lulu learned how to roll, I am only half telling the truth because she has only HALF learned how to roll. She can flip herself from back to stomach, but she can't yet flip herself from stomach to back. All night, she rolls in her crib, wakes up to find herself on her belly and the world utterly, horribly changed, and screams. Sometimes she gets her foot stuck in the bars of her crib, for added terror and fury. Sometimes she gets them both stuck. FIVE ALARM CRY, when that happens.
Lulu hasn't slept for more than two hours at a stretch since Thursday.
Which means that neither have we.
But Lulu doesn't seem to be feeling it like we do. Every morning, she wakes up as happy and fresh as if she'd had her full 10 hours. How does she do this? It has to have something to do with the energy of youth or a different metabolism or black magic or a blip in the matrix. Because there is no way that Lulu is getting MORE sleep than we are. Especially because a few times when she cried in the night we both played dead and pretended we didn't hear her. And then there were a couple of legitimate times we actually didn't hear her, so depleted were our brains of energy and stamina and sleeeeeeep.
J.D. and I stumbled through this weekend. On Saturday, we saw a friend skate in a roller derby and wanted to cry with jealousy at the display of raw energy. On Sunday, we went to watch football with friends and squinted blearily at the TV, fumbled with glasses, dropped nachos on the carpet, and generally behaved like total assholes. We draped ourselves over the handles of the cart in the checkout line at Safeway. People kept asking, concernedly, "Are you all right?" And we do not live in an area of the country where people usually give a shit how you are doing unless you are literally dying right in front of them. And sometimes not even then.
All through this, our baby cooed and smiled her gummy smile at strangers, and laughed her husky little laugh over and over and nommed the face off her Sophie the Giraffe teether and was generally adorable and cute and sweet and nothing like the raging hellbeast that she has been from 7 PM to 7 AM for the past three nights. Not a peep from her, even when her diaper leaked and soaked her pants or when I slipped and banged her arm while putting her in her carseat.
"She is such a doll," people said, over and over. "Does she EVER fuss?" And then I laughed and then I cried and then the person I was talking to took two giant steps away from me, slooooowly, with no sudden movements, and pretended to be totally engrossed in the back of a cereal box or the remote control or whatever was closest at hand and could also be used as a potential weapon against the crackpot crazy lady with the unbrushed hair who was gibbering about feet and colds and sleep regression.
We have a plan for tonight, though.
That, my dears, is a swing in our bedroom. And strapped securely into the swing is a baby stuffed with enough toxic, non-organic formula to put a grown man into a full-blown food coma.
Here's hoping it works.
We thought we'd gotten lucky. We got bed rest and hospital visits and fifteen days in the NICU, but we also got a baby who SLEEPS.
In the past few days, however, all of that has gone to shit and now we are no better than the rest of you tired parents.
It all started when Lulu got came down with her first cold. She seems in good spirits and hasn't run a temperature. The only time she seems ill at all is at night, when she horks and burbles and snuffles herself awake.
Second of all, I think we are entering the four-month sleep regression. Lu hit the six-month mark last week, but her adjusted age is four months. Even before she'd gotten sick, she had started to wake up more frequently, and the quality of her sleep seemed changed, more restless.
Third, Lulu learned how to roll.
When I say that Lulu learned how to roll, I am only half telling the truth because she has only HALF learned how to roll. She can flip herself from back to stomach, but she can't yet flip herself from stomach to back. All night, she rolls in her crib, wakes up to find herself on her belly and the world utterly, horribly changed, and screams. Sometimes she gets her foot stuck in the bars of her crib, for added terror and fury. Sometimes she gets them both stuck. FIVE ALARM CRY, when that happens.
Lulu hasn't slept for more than two hours at a stretch since Thursday.
Which means that neither have we.
But Lulu doesn't seem to be feeling it like we do. Every morning, she wakes up as happy and fresh as if she'd had her full 10 hours. How does she do this? It has to have something to do with the energy of youth or a different metabolism or black magic or a blip in the matrix. Because there is no way that Lulu is getting MORE sleep than we are. Especially because a few times when she cried in the night we both played dead and pretended we didn't hear her. And then there were a couple of legitimate times we actually didn't hear her, so depleted were our brains of energy and stamina and sleeeeeeep.
J.D. and I stumbled through this weekend. On Saturday, we saw a friend skate in a roller derby and wanted to cry with jealousy at the display of raw energy. On Sunday, we went to watch football with friends and squinted blearily at the TV, fumbled with glasses, dropped nachos on the carpet, and generally behaved like total assholes. We draped ourselves over the handles of the cart in the checkout line at Safeway. People kept asking, concernedly, "Are you all right?" And we do not live in an area of the country where people usually give a shit how you are doing unless you are literally dying right in front of them. And sometimes not even then.
All through this, our baby cooed and smiled her gummy smile at strangers, and laughed her husky little laugh over and over and nommed the face off her Sophie the Giraffe teether and was generally adorable and cute and sweet and nothing like the raging hellbeast that she has been from 7 PM to 7 AM for the past three nights. Not a peep from her, even when her diaper leaked and soaked her pants or when I slipped and banged her arm while putting her in her carseat.
"She is such a doll," people said, over and over. "Does she EVER fuss?" And then I laughed and then I cried and then the person I was talking to took two giant steps away from me, slooooowly, with no sudden movements, and pretended to be totally engrossed in the back of a cereal box or the remote control or whatever was closest at hand and could also be used as a potential weapon against the crackpot crazy lady with the unbrushed hair who was gibbering about feet and colds and sleep regression.
We have a plan for tonight, though.
That, my dears, is a swing in our bedroom. And strapped securely into the swing is a baby stuffed with enough toxic, non-organic formula to put a grown man into a full-blown food coma.
Here's hoping it works.
September 28, 2011
FYI: Your parents are cool(ish)
Because I am a loving parent (and also probably extremely overprotective), I haven't really had many nights out since Lulu was born. I live in fear of wearing out the few babysitters that are willing to watch our child for us. And I think I have PTSD from being separated from my baby for the first days, and weeks, of her life. So J.D. and I are the annoying people who take our kid everywhere with us, and haven't really had a proper date night since Lulu was born. We even took her with us to our anniversary dinner back in May.
But when J.D. told me that X, my favorite band of all time, was playing in Maryland on Monday night, and that there were tickets left, and that it might be fun to go, Icarefully weighed the pros and cons of leaving my baby called my MIL and asked if we could dump Lulu's ass with her for the evening. How could I not take this opportunity? I listened to Wild Gift pretty exclusively from about 2003-2006; it was the only CD in my car for a while. I think at one point, it got stuck in my CD player, and that was fine by me, since it saved me the hassle of having to find it in the detritus on the passenger-side seat. Plus, everybody in the band is in their 60s. Who knows how many shows they have left?
So Monday night, we went. I put on real clothes (as opposed to yoga pants). I did (run a brush through) my hair. I put on MAKEUP (lipgloss counts), and EARRINGS and even perfume! We left the baby and a heap of her stuff with my in-laws. And J.D. and I drove to Annapolis, and we heard X play.
And! We talked about so many things on the ride there! Things that were not child-related. We talked about politics and home values and music and gossiped about people we know and it was SO QUIET. And yes, there were a few times when I looked back and saw the empty carseat and freaked out for half a second, thinking we had left the baby in the parking lot or on the roof of the car or something, but I soon calmed myself because THERE WAS NO CRYING and it was just so peaceful I couldn't help but relax.
This show was the strangest punk show that I have ever been to. Instead of being crammed in a basement or a sweaty room in a bar, we were seated at a table surrounded by a bunch of other tables in a pretty upscale restaurant. A waiter came by to take our drink orders and left carrying a tray of empty martini glasses. There was a list of specialty beers and available tapa-type appetizers and a bunch of people in business casual work clothes and I was the youngest person there by about 15 years, which is what happens when you like bands that rose to popularity before you born. We watched a documentary and then the band played through their most famous album, and then they played for another 45 minutes or so. Altogether, we were there for about two hours, and in those two hours, I listened and sang and talked and drank (iced tea) and generally had an AWESOME time.
A picture of the band, and also the pole that blocked half of my view of the stage. But it was a very upscale pole.
I had so much fun. I had forgotten what it was like to be able to give my whole attention to something without wiping up drool with one hand and calculating how long before I needed to breastfeed again in the back of my mind. Between sets, I went outside and bummed a smoke off of a young crust-punk and got into a very heated discussion with him about the definition of anarchy (lack of state, not lack of laws) and why Haiti is so f-ed up (corrupt government and deforestation). I quoted Thomas Jefferson and brought up the whole lawyer thing to make a point. And then I realized that zipper on my $14 Forever 21 jeans had been down the whole time and that I was possibly not as cool as I thought.
I slunk back into the venue and drank more iced tea and listened to Exene wail and watched Billy Zoom play the guitar, cool as a cucumber, and was happy when the band played my favorite one of their songs.
After the show, J.D. and I sat in a deserted park in the center of town and talked for a while. And then he stood up, and said we should probably get back. My first thought was, why? And then I remembered: the baby. For a minute, I felt like a bad mom, because I kind of...forgot. I had a picture of Lulu in my head, her blue eyes welling, missing me...when I'd been chugging iced tea and singing at the top of my lungs. How could I have wanted to be away from her? What if she needed me?
But then I got over it, and decided that going out and enjoying myself was the best thing I could have done for my child. Lulu, if you are reading this thirteen years from now, do not take this the wrong way, but right now, being your parent, while fun and often funny, is not always very intellectually stimulating. And you, like all babies, can be rather selfish in that I DO NOT CARE IF YOU ARE IN THE BATH, MAMA, I NEED TO EAT NOW. Tonight I got to recharge my batteries, and remind myself of who I am outside of you, and I can't share all the things I love about the world with you if I do not experience them and thus cannot recall exactly what they are.
Plus, if I had not gone away from you, I wouldn't have gotten to come back and experience tons of delicious baby smiles when you saw me again. That was pretty great.
Other things I learned tonight: pregnancy has robbed me of my iced tea tolerance, which was once pretty impressive. I think I spent about 30% of my night out going back and forth from my table to the bathroom. Luckily, it, too, was far more upscale than the bathrooms I am used to at these events. There was no drug use going on in there (that I could see). And no hanky-panky between people reeking of B.O. And there was one of those hand dryers that's so strong it moves the skin on your hands all around. FANCY!
But when J.D. told me that X, my favorite band of all time, was playing in Maryland on Monday night, and that there were tickets left, and that it might be fun to go, I
So Monday night, we went. I put on real clothes (as opposed to yoga pants). I did (run a brush through) my hair. I put on MAKEUP (lipgloss counts), and EARRINGS and even perfume! We left the baby and a heap of her stuff with my in-laws. And J.D. and I drove to Annapolis, and we heard X play.
And! We talked about so many things on the ride there! Things that were not child-related. We talked about politics and home values and music and gossiped about people we know and it was SO QUIET. And yes, there were a few times when I looked back and saw the empty carseat and freaked out for half a second, thinking we had left the baby in the parking lot or on the roof of the car or something, but I soon calmed myself because THERE WAS NO CRYING and it was just so peaceful I couldn't help but relax.
This show was the strangest punk show that I have ever been to. Instead of being crammed in a basement or a sweaty room in a bar, we were seated at a table surrounded by a bunch of other tables in a pretty upscale restaurant. A waiter came by to take our drink orders and left carrying a tray of empty martini glasses. There was a list of specialty beers and available tapa-type appetizers and a bunch of people in business casual work clothes and I was the youngest person there by about 15 years, which is what happens when you like bands that rose to popularity before you born. We watched a documentary and then the band played through their most famous album, and then they played for another 45 minutes or so. Altogether, we were there for about two hours, and in those two hours, I listened and sang and talked and drank (iced tea) and generally had an AWESOME time.
A picture of the band, and also the pole that blocked half of my view of the stage. But it was a very upscale pole.I had so much fun. I had forgotten what it was like to be able to give my whole attention to something without wiping up drool with one hand and calculating how long before I needed to breastfeed again in the back of my mind. Between sets, I went outside and bummed a smoke off of a young crust-punk and got into a very heated discussion with him about the definition of anarchy (lack of state, not lack of laws) and why Haiti is so f-ed up (corrupt government and deforestation). I quoted Thomas Jefferson and brought up the whole lawyer thing to make a point. And then I realized that zipper on my $14 Forever 21 jeans had been down the whole time and that I was possibly not as cool as I thought.
I slunk back into the venue and drank more iced tea and listened to Exene wail and watched Billy Zoom play the guitar, cool as a cucumber, and was happy when the band played my favorite one of their songs.
After the show, J.D. and I sat in a deserted park in the center of town and talked for a while. And then he stood up, and said we should probably get back. My first thought was, why? And then I remembered: the baby. For a minute, I felt like a bad mom, because I kind of...forgot. I had a picture of Lulu in my head, her blue eyes welling, missing me...when I'd been chugging iced tea and singing at the top of my lungs. How could I have wanted to be away from her? What if she needed me?
But then I got over it, and decided that going out and enjoying myself was the best thing I could have done for my child. Lulu, if you are reading this thirteen years from now, do not take this the wrong way, but right now, being your parent, while fun and often funny, is not always very intellectually stimulating. And you, like all babies, can be rather selfish in that I DO NOT CARE IF YOU ARE IN THE BATH, MAMA, I NEED TO EAT NOW. Tonight I got to recharge my batteries, and remind myself of who I am outside of you, and I can't share all the things I love about the world with you if I do not experience them and thus cannot recall exactly what they are.
Plus, if I had not gone away from you, I wouldn't have gotten to come back and experience tons of delicious baby smiles when you saw me again. That was pretty great.
Other things I learned tonight: pregnancy has robbed me of my iced tea tolerance, which was once pretty impressive. I think I spent about 30% of my night out going back and forth from my table to the bathroom. Luckily, it, too, was far more upscale than the bathrooms I am used to at these events. There was no drug use going on in there (that I could see). And no hanky-panky between people reeking of B.O. And there was one of those hand dryers that's so strong it moves the skin on your hands all around. FANCY!
September 27, 2011
Making mistakes
Last week, in conversation with J.D. and in front of our kid, I used a word, unthinkingly, to express frustration with a person in the service industry who was inconveniencing me. Total asshole move on my part. The thing is, later I realized this word is more than just a curse word, that it can be really hurtful to a lot of people. It's not something obvious, one of the words that is right at the top of the DO NOT USE list. It's one where you kind of have to think about why it's wrong. And thinking, that's something I don't do a lot of, obviously.
And once I realized what I had said, I was horrified. And disgusted with myself. I tried to apologize, and to soothe my guilty conscience, by donating money to an activist group. It didn't work. I still felt bad, and I realized that the only thing I could do to make myself feel better was either 1) hop in my Delorean and ride back to the past and NOT SAY IT, or 2, and more realistically) resolve to never do it again in the future and really watch myself.
But here's the thing: I thought I had been watching myself. And now I wonder: how many of these kinds of mistakes am I, as a mother, going to make? Mistakes that I don't even realize I have made until later, or mistakes I NEVER realize that I've made, where I sail blithely on, unawares, after leaving a lasting impression on Lulu's mind that THIS is bad, or THIS is wrong, even when I don't believe that myself?
I think the song from South Pacific is wrong. You don't have to be carefully taught, necessarily. Sometimes you just have to be carelessly taught.
How many mistakes have I made already? How can I undo them when I'm not even aware of what they are, where they happened? How can I live with the fact that I am going to fill this marvelous, beautiful, wonderful blank slate of a kid with neuroses and biases and ideas about the world that might be hurtful or just plain wrong? I chatter on unthinkingly and don't remember half of what I said as soon as I've said it. But I can't control what Lulu will remember and what she will discard. I can't control which phrases and ideas that she hears from me will stick with her, and shape her. I can only control myself, the things I say, the things I put out there.
And I'm not used to doing that. To looking inward, to weighing my words, thinking before I act. It feels like A LOT, you know? Too much responsibility. And it's turning out to be far more difficult than the responsibility you think about when you bring the kid home from the hospital, the feeding her, the keeping her alive.
I thought at first that the hard part of motherhood was the sleep deprivation, the blowout diapers, the fear your child will be hurt or lonely or worse. But I also thought that parenthood could be separated into two categories of important and less important events. That in the valleys between the peaks of important things, you could relax a little and enjoy yourself and not have to worry about it or try so hard.
I am starting to realize, now, that it's all important. Everything. There are no valleys. It all counts.
And once I realized what I had said, I was horrified. And disgusted with myself. I tried to apologize, and to soothe my guilty conscience, by donating money to an activist group. It didn't work. I still felt bad, and I realized that the only thing I could do to make myself feel better was either 1) hop in my Delorean and ride back to the past and NOT SAY IT, or 2, and more realistically) resolve to never do it again in the future and really watch myself.
But here's the thing: I thought I had been watching myself. And now I wonder: how many of these kinds of mistakes am I, as a mother, going to make? Mistakes that I don't even realize I have made until later, or mistakes I NEVER realize that I've made, where I sail blithely on, unawares, after leaving a lasting impression on Lulu's mind that THIS is bad, or THIS is wrong, even when I don't believe that myself?
I think the song from South Pacific is wrong. You don't have to be carefully taught, necessarily. Sometimes you just have to be carelessly taught.
How many mistakes have I made already? How can I undo them when I'm not even aware of what they are, where they happened? How can I live with the fact that I am going to fill this marvelous, beautiful, wonderful blank slate of a kid with neuroses and biases and ideas about the world that might be hurtful or just plain wrong? I chatter on unthinkingly and don't remember half of what I said as soon as I've said it. But I can't control what Lulu will remember and what she will discard. I can't control which phrases and ideas that she hears from me will stick with her, and shape her. I can only control myself, the things I say, the things I put out there.
And I'm not used to doing that. To looking inward, to weighing my words, thinking before I act. It feels like A LOT, you know? Too much responsibility. And it's turning out to be far more difficult than the responsibility you think about when you bring the kid home from the hospital, the feeding her, the keeping her alive.
I thought at first that the hard part of motherhood was the sleep deprivation, the blowout diapers, the fear your child will be hurt or lonely or worse. But I also thought that parenthood could be separated into two categories of important and less important events. That in the valleys between the peaks of important things, you could relax a little and enjoy yourself and not have to worry about it or try so hard.
I am starting to realize, now, that it's all important. Everything. There are no valleys. It all counts.
Tragedies, And How We Deal With Them
There was a lot of talk, around the eleventh of this month, about how to talk to your kids about tragedy, and when to start. I didn't pay that much attention to it, partially because I rather prefer to go case-by-case and deal with each thing separately and personally, instead of having one over-arching "method" for dealing with tragedy. And it was partially because my littles are so little that there hasn't seemed much need for preparing myself for this particular stage of motherhood yet.
Or so I thought, until last Sunday morning, when we were out to breakfast with my parents before church, and the older gentleman at the table behind us had a stroke.
It was a quiet stroke - since I was sitting with my back to their table, at first I thought it was just a gentleman with Alzheimer's out with his family. The daughter kept saying "Dad, it's time to go home now." Then there would be a pause, then she'd say again, "Dad, are you ready to go home?" Then the staff brought out a wheelchair, then my own father went over to ask if he could help (he knew the gentleman personally), and it slowly dawned on me that this was more than just Alzheimer's stubbornness.
(On a side note, "just" Alzheimer's stubbornness sounds ridiculous, when you think about what that entails. Which I do, all the time, thanks to my grandmother's condition.)
Eventually, they had to call 911, and the paramedics came and loaded him up on a gurney and carried him out to the ambulance. By that point, he was responding physically, squeezing their hands when they asked and even attempting to smile, though he wasn't speaking.
And my girls sat there through it all. By God's grace, Joy, who would have paid exquisitely close attention to it all and been very disturbed by it, was sitting next to me, and could only see bits and pieces out of the corner of her eye (thanks to our persistent reminders that turning one's head to stare at anyone is not polite). Grace could see it all, but she was more interested in the pond out the window than anything else. She pays attention to everything, too much of everything, to be affected much by any one thing.
So all I really had to do was explain to Joy that the funny-looking bed was for when people weren't feeling well enough to walk on their own, and they were taking the nice gentleman to a place where they would help him feel better. And she accepted that, and Grace was persuaded to not run over to try to climb on the gurney, and then the paramedics and the family left, and that was that.
Not a huge deal, not like someone died behind us, but still enough of a poignant reminder to me of the fragility of life, and the ever-hovering presence of tragedy. What would I have told them if it had been more dramatic, if it had been so noticeable even Grace couldn't remain oblivious? What will I tell them, in a year or two years or however much longer she holds on, when we have to go to Great-Grandma's funeral? How do you explain death, and sickness, and tragedies, and the cruelty of some aspects of life, to children who, thank God, have only ever known the beautiful side of this world?
Even more, how to explain the deliberate cruelty of some people, whether it be a schoolyard bully or a terrorist?
I'm not sure, yet. But I think I need to start figuring it out, at least how to break things down into a basic explanation that can be adapted to specific circumstances, lest the next time we confront the harsher realities of life, my children turn to me for answers, and I am left with nothing to say.
Or so I thought, until last Sunday morning, when we were out to breakfast with my parents before church, and the older gentleman at the table behind us had a stroke.
It was a quiet stroke - since I was sitting with my back to their table, at first I thought it was just a gentleman with Alzheimer's out with his family. The daughter kept saying "Dad, it's time to go home now." Then there would be a pause, then she'd say again, "Dad, are you ready to go home?" Then the staff brought out a wheelchair, then my own father went over to ask if he could help (he knew the gentleman personally), and it slowly dawned on me that this was more than just Alzheimer's stubbornness.
(On a side note, "just" Alzheimer's stubbornness sounds ridiculous, when you think about what that entails. Which I do, all the time, thanks to my grandmother's condition.)
Eventually, they had to call 911, and the paramedics came and loaded him up on a gurney and carried him out to the ambulance. By that point, he was responding physically, squeezing their hands when they asked and even attempting to smile, though he wasn't speaking.
And my girls sat there through it all. By God's grace, Joy, who would have paid exquisitely close attention to it all and been very disturbed by it, was sitting next to me, and could only see bits and pieces out of the corner of her eye (thanks to our persistent reminders that turning one's head to stare at anyone is not polite). Grace could see it all, but she was more interested in the pond out the window than anything else. She pays attention to everything, too much of everything, to be affected much by any one thing.
So all I really had to do was explain to Joy that the funny-looking bed was for when people weren't feeling well enough to walk on their own, and they were taking the nice gentleman to a place where they would help him feel better. And she accepted that, and Grace was persuaded to not run over to try to climb on the gurney, and then the paramedics and the family left, and that was that.
Not a huge deal, not like someone died behind us, but still enough of a poignant reminder to me of the fragility of life, and the ever-hovering presence of tragedy. What would I have told them if it had been more dramatic, if it had been so noticeable even Grace couldn't remain oblivious? What will I tell them, in a year or two years or however much longer she holds on, when we have to go to Great-Grandma's funeral? How do you explain death, and sickness, and tragedies, and the cruelty of some aspects of life, to children who, thank God, have only ever known the beautiful side of this world?
Even more, how to explain the deliberate cruelty of some people, whether it be a schoolyard bully or a terrorist?
I'm not sure, yet. But I think I need to start figuring it out, at least how to break things down into a basic explanation that can be adapted to specific circumstances, lest the next time we confront the harsher realities of life, my children turn to me for answers, and I am left with nothing to say.
September 20, 2011
(Pre) School Daze
I was so proud of myself for figuring out a school schedule for doing preschool with Joy this year - I felt like a real homeschooling mom, with a schedule on the refrigerator and everything.
Until we started this morning, and I realized that I did not take into account my child's devouring interest in all things school related. She tore through the planned materials in less than half the time I had anticipated, leading me to sprint upstairs and dig out Thursday's workbook for her to do as well. Not only is she doing more books each day than I had expected, she is going to end up going through them in a shorter amount of time than I had expected, which means I am already ordering more workbooks for her, and looking at the very real possibility that we'll be finished in what I thought was a half-year's curriculum in two months.
Yay! And also: what have I gotten myself into?
I am so very much not a natural teacher. I know preschool workbooks and curriculum aren't necessary for this age, but I am terrible at trying to come up with fun ways to teach these basic pre-kindergarten skills. So the curriculum saves me from frustrations and headaches, and gives my girls a great way to learn. Having a kid this smart already, pushing me beyond what I was expecting (and I'm her mother, so you know I obviously think Joy's a genius) (Grace is a genius too, only hers is more the creative kind, not so much the academic kind. Also, I think she's a musical prodigy, because she already has an opera singer's range - just ask anyone who's ever listened to her cry), is both exciting and kind of freaking me out.
You want to give your kid the best of everything. You want them to have every opportunity to reach their fullest potential. You don't want to push them, or place your goals on them, but you do not want to see them fall short because of your failures.
And so, having a child who is already so academically inclined is a little scary. What if I don't give her the right materials, and end up having her hate school because I didn't teach her properly? What if I push too hard and she gets frustrated? What if I don't push hard enough and she gets bored and loses interest? What if I start assuming she's headed for greatness, but this is really fairly common? What if she is uncommonly gifted, and I miss it because I don't want to be one of those mothers?
And so I tentatively advance one half step at a time, holding my breath at every moment, hoping I'm doing the right thing.
And here I thought the baby stage was hard.
Until we started this morning, and I realized that I did not take into account my child's devouring interest in all things school related. She tore through the planned materials in less than half the time I had anticipated, leading me to sprint upstairs and dig out Thursday's workbook for her to do as well. Not only is she doing more books each day than I had expected, she is going to end up going through them in a shorter amount of time than I had expected, which means I am already ordering more workbooks for her, and looking at the very real possibility that we'll be finished in what I thought was a half-year's curriculum in two months.
Yay! And also: what have I gotten myself into?
I am so very much not a natural teacher. I know preschool workbooks and curriculum aren't necessary for this age, but I am terrible at trying to come up with fun ways to teach these basic pre-kindergarten skills. So the curriculum saves me from frustrations and headaches, and gives my girls a great way to learn. Having a kid this smart already, pushing me beyond what I was expecting (and I'm her mother, so you know I obviously think Joy's a genius) (Grace is a genius too, only hers is more the creative kind, not so much the academic kind. Also, I think she's a musical prodigy, because she already has an opera singer's range - just ask anyone who's ever listened to her cry), is both exciting and kind of freaking me out.
You want to give your kid the best of everything. You want them to have every opportunity to reach their fullest potential. You don't want to push them, or place your goals on them, but you do not want to see them fall short because of your failures.
And so, having a child who is already so academically inclined is a little scary. What if I don't give her the right materials, and end up having her hate school because I didn't teach her properly? What if I push too hard and she gets frustrated? What if I don't push hard enough and she gets bored and loses interest? What if I start assuming she's headed for greatness, but this is really fairly common? What if she is uncommonly gifted, and I miss it because I don't want to be one of those mothers?
And so I tentatively advance one half step at a time, holding my breath at every moment, hoping I'm doing the right thing.
And here I thought the baby stage was hard.
September 16, 2011
This messy life
I've always prided myself on my ability to keep a clean house. It's something that has always been very important to me. There are a hundred thousand neurotic reasons why. I got married at 21, and so I think having a perfect, spic-and-span abode felt like some way I could prove I was mature enough to be somebody's wife, that I was ready for it. Also, J.D. and I have always lived in small spaces, and there just isn't a lot of room for clutter. Clutter actually makes things take longer: try cooking dinner in a 30 square foot kitchen that's laden with dirty dishes. And then there's the fact that cleaning is such an easy way to feel like a success: you do the job, and then you can step back and see it's done, see what you've achieved. When I was in law school and struggling with thorny legal issues that had no real resolution day in and day out, I found it difficult to sleep unless my entire house was clean, everything put away, all the laundry folded, all the towels hanging the same way on the rack in the bathroom. Which...is probably something I should discuss with a therapist.
Having a baby changed things. For one, there was more clutter. Little toys, onesies, cloth diaper inserts, all needing a home, a place. Tiny socks needing a mate. Bottle bladders, guaranteed to reduce colic--all of these things needed to be washed, dried, matched with corresponding parts. And then, of course, there was less time to do all that.
I tried my best for a while to keep up. I followed the Fly Lady's protocol. I downloaded the Motivated Moms app for my iPhone, and received a list of tasks to perform each day. But both programs made me feel like more of a spazz, not less. Organize my crafting corner? WHAT crafting corner? Clean guest bedroom? I vacuumed the couch, looked inside the cushions, found three forks. I got sidetracked for an hour by a note directing me to scrub my upstairs bathroom--oh, what I could do with an upstairs bathroom! And an upstairs!
I started to fall further and further behind. A few dishes left in the sink when I went to bed. A jumble of shoes in the corner, instead of neatly put away in corresponding closets. And then, almost without my realizing it, this happened.
At first I felt bad about it, fought a little harder. I'd decide to tackle that front closet, pull everything out as the start of a massive decluttering project. Then the baby would wake up, and I'd have to leave everything where it was and go change her, and oh, shit, do a load of cloth diapers, and all the shady things that had been hidden away at the back of the closet slowly became permanent parts of the surrounding landscape. It was like quicksand: the more you fight, the faster you sink.
So I stopped fighting. One of the most liberating moments of my life was the day I realized that I was a better mother because I had stopped putting such a premium on a clean house. Before, Lulu spent a lot of time in her swing while I folded clothes, listened to way to much of the Toddler Tunez HD music channel. The song about walking to school, bouncing like a kanga-ranga-roo? On a trampa-lampa-line? I think that was driving both of us insane.
Now we do a lot more of this:
And this:
And yes, there is still some of this
But in the end, it's probably a lot less brain-damaging than the trampa-lampa-line.
And now, if you'll excuse me, Lulu just woke up, and I need to go hike up Mt. St. Laundry to find a burp cloth. Wish me luck! I may be some time.
Having a baby changed things. For one, there was more clutter. Little toys, onesies, cloth diaper inserts, all needing a home, a place. Tiny socks needing a mate. Bottle bladders, guaranteed to reduce colic--all of these things needed to be washed, dried, matched with corresponding parts. And then, of course, there was less time to do all that.
I tried my best for a while to keep up. I followed the Fly Lady's protocol. I downloaded the Motivated Moms app for my iPhone, and received a list of tasks to perform each day. But both programs made me feel like more of a spazz, not less. Organize my crafting corner? WHAT crafting corner? Clean guest bedroom? I vacuumed the couch, looked inside the cushions, found three forks. I got sidetracked for an hour by a note directing me to scrub my upstairs bathroom--oh, what I could do with an upstairs bathroom! And an upstairs!
I started to fall further and further behind. A few dishes left in the sink when I went to bed. A jumble of shoes in the corner, instead of neatly put away in corresponding closets. And then, almost without my realizing it, this happened.
At first I felt bad about it, fought a little harder. I'd decide to tackle that front closet, pull everything out as the start of a massive decluttering project. Then the baby would wake up, and I'd have to leave everything where it was and go change her, and oh, shit, do a load of cloth diapers, and all the shady things that had been hidden away at the back of the closet slowly became permanent parts of the surrounding landscape. It was like quicksand: the more you fight, the faster you sink.
So I stopped fighting. One of the most liberating moments of my life was the day I realized that I was a better mother because I had stopped putting such a premium on a clean house. Before, Lulu spent a lot of time in her swing while I folded clothes, listened to way to much of the Toddler Tunez HD music channel. The song about walking to school, bouncing like a kanga-ranga-roo? On a trampa-lampa-line? I think that was driving both of us insane.
Now we do a lot more of this:
And this:
And yes, there is still some of this
But in the end, it's probably a lot less brain-damaging than the trampa-lampa-line.
And now, if you'll excuse me, Lulu just woke up, and I need to go hike up Mt. St. Laundry to find a burp cloth. Wish me luck! I may be some time.
September 7, 2011
Riding in cars with babies
So you're going on a long car trip with your infant! I have some tips for you.
1. Everything you might need during the ride needs to be easily accessible, NOT packed away in your suitcase in the trunk. Fill a diaper bag until it is bursting at the seams with toys, wipes, burpcloths, portable pump and parts, change of clothing, et cetera. Be sure to put your wallet away down deep at the bottom of the bag, so that you can hold up a whole host of cars at tollbooths. Don't think of it as being unprepared: think of it as helping all the people in the other cars cultivate the virtue of patience.
2. Be sure to take advantage of this opportunity to introduce your child to some of your favorite music. Cue up some Clash on the old iPod. Turn the volume up so baby can hear.
3. Oh no! It appears that infants, like everybody else, do not like Sandinista! Turn up volume even louder to cover sound of crying.
4. When you realize the crying can be heard over Joe Strummer's jangling guitar, take the exit for the nearest gas station in order to effectuate a diaper change. Yeah. Tell yourself it's the diaper, not your own stupidity, that's the cause of this.
5. If it turns out the meltdown was partly caused by a DEFCON-5-level diaper blowout, be sure to park near a trash can. Or else you will have to carry a compact tricorn bundle of baby shit all the way across the parking lot, with people looking at you and wrinkling their noses in your wake.
6. Now that she is clean and dry, Baby has decided she is hungry! Good thing you packed that travel breastpump and all its little parts, right? Commence to pump in backseat under cheerful-patterned Hooter Hider. Realize you are inept at using Hooter Hider, and have accidentally flashed bus of church campers parked at the neighboring pump. In situations like this, a rueful smile is appropriate. Also, putting the offending boob away posthaste.
7. Resort to can of poisonous formula in trunk in order to feed child. Even though you just said you were done with formula, forever. Everyone knows the normal rules don't apply to the open road.
8. Go into convenience store for bottled water to mix said formula with. Listen to the dulcet sounds of your child screaming from inside a car 50 yards away while your husband presumably tortures her. In a fit of temptation, buy pack of cigarettes with water. It doesn't mean you smoke again! It doesn't mean you've UNQUIT! You're just having an interlude. Take one secret, beautiful puff off vile, tempting cigarette while hidden behind Dumpster.
9. Realize what you are doing. Hurl cigarette and rest of pack into Dumpster. Pour water all over face and hands to get rid of offending smell/dangerous second-hand smoke. Feel guilty. You are a horrible mother. Go back to car, horrible mother, and mix a bottle for your starving child. When you reach car, she is no longer screaming, and no longer hungry, but still fussing with the kind of general unhappiness experienced by characters in a novel by Dostoevsky.
10. Salvage horrible situation with artistic picture taken of child and husband at outdoor picnic area. In twenty years, you will not remember the migraine mounting behind your left eye. You will look back fondly on this picture and think it was a nice trip. Be sure to mention to young parents how easy it all was, so that they can simultaneously hate you for being smug and despair about why WHY GOD it isn't that easy for them.
This post brought to you by a whole lot of bad parenting. And also Coca Cola!
1. Everything you might need during the ride needs to be easily accessible, NOT packed away in your suitcase in the trunk. Fill a diaper bag until it is bursting at the seams with toys, wipes, burpcloths, portable pump and parts, change of clothing, et cetera. Be sure to put your wallet away down deep at the bottom of the bag, so that you can hold up a whole host of cars at tollbooths. Don't think of it as being unprepared: think of it as helping all the people in the other cars cultivate the virtue of patience.
2. Be sure to take advantage of this opportunity to introduce your child to some of your favorite music. Cue up some Clash on the old iPod. Turn the volume up so baby can hear.
3. Oh no! It appears that infants, like everybody else, do not like Sandinista! Turn up volume even louder to cover sound of crying.
4. When you realize the crying can be heard over Joe Strummer's jangling guitar, take the exit for the nearest gas station in order to effectuate a diaper change. Yeah. Tell yourself it's the diaper, not your own stupidity, that's the cause of this.
5. If it turns out the meltdown was partly caused by a DEFCON-5-level diaper blowout, be sure to park near a trash can. Or else you will have to carry a compact tricorn bundle of baby shit all the way across the parking lot, with people looking at you and wrinkling their noses in your wake.
6. Now that she is clean and dry, Baby has decided she is hungry! Good thing you packed that travel breastpump and all its little parts, right? Commence to pump in backseat under cheerful-patterned Hooter Hider. Realize you are inept at using Hooter Hider, and have accidentally flashed bus of church campers parked at the neighboring pump. In situations like this, a rueful smile is appropriate. Also, putting the offending boob away posthaste.
7. Resort to can of poisonous formula in trunk in order to feed child. Even though you just said you were done with formula, forever. Everyone knows the normal rules don't apply to the open road.
8. Go into convenience store for bottled water to mix said formula with. Listen to the dulcet sounds of your child screaming from inside a car 50 yards away while your husband presumably tortures her. In a fit of temptation, buy pack of cigarettes with water. It doesn't mean you smoke again! It doesn't mean you've UNQUIT! You're just having an interlude. Take one secret, beautiful puff off vile, tempting cigarette while hidden behind Dumpster.
9. Realize what you are doing. Hurl cigarette and rest of pack into Dumpster. Pour water all over face and hands to get rid of offending smell/dangerous second-hand smoke. Feel guilty. You are a horrible mother. Go back to car, horrible mother, and mix a bottle for your starving child. When you reach car, she is no longer screaming, and no longer hungry, but still fussing with the kind of general unhappiness experienced by characters in a novel by Dostoevsky.
10. Salvage horrible situation with artistic picture taken of child and husband at outdoor picnic area. In twenty years, you will not remember the migraine mounting behind your left eye. You will look back fondly on this picture and think it was a nice trip. Be sure to mention to young parents how easy it all was, so that they can simultaneously hate you for being smug and despair about why WHY GOD it isn't that easy for them.
This post brought to you by a whole lot of bad parenting. And also Coca Cola!
August 31, 2011
Philosophies and Motivations
A couple days ago, I had to put Joy in time-out TWICE for hitting her sister (to be specific, the second time she pinched Grace's arm, which she seemed to think was perfectly reasonable and should not result in a time-out, yet was strangely reluctant when I offered to pinch her arm so she could see how it felt to her two-year-old sister). As we talked about why she was getting disciplined, I realized that my parenting philosophy, the principles and guidelines I want to instill in my girls, has finally crystallized into something solid.
No "hitting is wrong." Instead, we talked about the need to love other people, especially her sister, and that love means wanting to protect them from being hurt, not causing them hurt. We (or rather, I, since Joy's contribution to the conversation consisted of "Do you like your shirt?" and "No, I don't love sissy" when pressed for an outright answer. Which is okay, because she's not yet four, and has plenty of years to understand love) talked about how important it is to be the kind of person who shows their love by acting in a loving and kind manner, and how all our actions ought to be motivated by thinking of what is best for others, not for us.
And that, in a nutshell, sums up my thoughts on life, and how I want my girls to grow up thinking. If I set them a bunch of rules and regulations, they might look very good on the outside, but what of their motivations - will they be prideful and smug? No, I want them to look at their insides, to think about their motivations, and then act upon that. My mother, who is currently studying philosophy as part of her MA in Classics, tells me this is "Virtue Ethics," which sounds pretty good to me.
When they do something well, we praise their sweet spirits, their helpfulness, their thoughtfulness, anything but the deed itself. When they do something wrong, we talk about why the deed was wrong more than the deed itself.
This all has an added side benefit - girls especially are so driven by outward appearance; so much emphasis is put on beauty. I want my girls solidly ingrained in the idea that it is what is inside of you that makes you beautiful, not how pretty your features and figure are (and let me tell you, with those two beautiful elfin girls, it is HARD not to gush all the time about how pretty they look!). They will be getting enough pressure from outside sources, the older they grow, to focus on the image they are presenting to the world. I want to start them with a firm foundation that it is what motivates them, rather than their actions themselves, that is important.
It would be a whole lot easier to just set a list of rules - do this, don't do that, but hey, who ever got into parenting expecting it to be EASY?
No "hitting is wrong." Instead, we talked about the need to love other people, especially her sister, and that love means wanting to protect them from being hurt, not causing them hurt. We (or rather, I, since Joy's contribution to the conversation consisted of "Do you like your shirt?" and "No, I don't love sissy" when pressed for an outright answer. Which is okay, because she's not yet four, and has plenty of years to understand love) talked about how important it is to be the kind of person who shows their love by acting in a loving and kind manner, and how all our actions ought to be motivated by thinking of what is best for others, not for us.
And that, in a nutshell, sums up my thoughts on life, and how I want my girls to grow up thinking. If I set them a bunch of rules and regulations, they might look very good on the outside, but what of their motivations - will they be prideful and smug? No, I want them to look at their insides, to think about their motivations, and then act upon that. My mother, who is currently studying philosophy as part of her MA in Classics, tells me this is "Virtue Ethics," which sounds pretty good to me.
When they do something well, we praise their sweet spirits, their helpfulness, their thoughtfulness, anything but the deed itself. When they do something wrong, we talk about why the deed was wrong more than the deed itself.
This all has an added side benefit - girls especially are so driven by outward appearance; so much emphasis is put on beauty. I want my girls solidly ingrained in the idea that it is what is inside of you that makes you beautiful, not how pretty your features and figure are (and let me tell you, with those two beautiful elfin girls, it is HARD not to gush all the time about how pretty they look!). They will be getting enough pressure from outside sources, the older they grow, to focus on the image they are presenting to the world. I want to start them with a firm foundation that it is what motivates them, rather than their actions themselves, that is important.
It would be a whole lot easier to just set a list of rules - do this, don't do that, but hey, who ever got into parenting expecting it to be EASY?
And seeing this sort of behavior between the two of them makes it all worthwhile. Wouldn't you agree?
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